Registration

If you decide to move up from the division in which you are placed, please email Mary Rhoades.

To play in the NSC, you must
(1) be a NASPA member,
and (2) have played in an officially
sanctioned SCRABBLE tournament to earn
an official tournament rating.
If you live in the United States or
Canada, that rating should be a NASPA
rating; if you live elsewhere it may be
a WESPA rating or other comparable
national rating.

Registration closes on July 21st, 2010.
After that date:

registrations will be accepted after that date only in order to make divisions even, and will incur a $75 surcharge

no requests for division changes will be accepted, except to make divisions even

no refunds will be issued

By registering for the NSC, you agree to abide by the NASPA Tournament Rules and Code of Conduct.
In particular, some games at this tournament, probably the highest Division 1 board without a Gibsonized player,
will be annotated live.
If you refuse to play a designated game with annotation,
you will forfeit it, and may at the director’s discretion be assigned a spread penalty of −200 points.

A Minor Release and Consent form can be downloaded for players who have not reached the legal age of majority. It can be mailed with your registration or alone if you have paid online to Chris Cree. Alternatively, it can be signed by the accompanying parent or guardian at the NSC in Addison (Dallas).

Before you register, please read our
player bulletin, and check
it again for last-minute updates before you travel to the event.

This year’s Championship has five divisions, split at ratings of
1700, 1500, 1300 and 1000. Entry fees are $175 for Division 1 and $150 for Divisions 2–5.
Unlimited play up will be permitted: anyone
can play in Division 1, but for example only players rated below
1000 can play in Division 5. As in past years, a peak rating system
will be used to calculate the qualifying rating (QR) that determines the
lowest division in which you can play.
If your current rating at time of registration would place you in a
lower division than your QR, then you may register in
either your QR division or the next lower division.
Ratings earned at any segment of a split-rated tournament count
toward the QR.
The qualification period began immediately after
the 2009 National SCRABBLE Championship and ends on July 14th, 2010 (after
the results from the past weekend are tabulated).
You may change your division after you
register, as long as you do so before July 21st; to do so, contact
John Chew.
If your QR rises above the limit for your division, you will automatically
be moved to the lowest division for which you qualify.

Check-In

To play in the first round on Saturday morning, you must check in between 10:00 A.M. and 10:00 P.M. on Friday at the NSC check-in desks in the Crystal Ballroom lobby. You may ask a friend to check in for you by proxy, if you cannot check in in person. If you and your proxy are not on the proxy list, your materials will not be released and you will have been considered not to have checked in. If you check in by proxy, but do not show up to play, then neither you nor your proxy will be permitted to check in by proxy at future events. If you do not check in before the desks close at 10:00 P.M., you may join the championship in progress as soon as it is convenient for the pairings staff to add you back in; this may not take place before Sunday morning. No refund will be issued to latecomers.

When you check in, you will be given an announcement sheet. This is to reduce the number of announcements that have to be made on Saturday morning, so that the event can get underway quickly. You are responsible for reading the announcements and schedule!

Schedule

Here is an overview of events at the championship.
For full details, please consult the
2010 NSC Schedule.

The Rose Award

Bob Schoenman's Protiles honors Rose Kreiswirth's memory. Rose was an expert Scrabble® player for over 30 years and cherished the game for its educational values. An accomplished player, Rose was as well known for her sense of fairness and her congeniality as she was for her competitiveness.
The Rose Award will be awarded each year at the National SCRABBLE Championship to a female player who, in the opinion of the judges, best exemplifies the fierce competitiveness and compassion that we remember Rose for. Thank you, Bob and Andi Schoenman!

The Rita Norr, Lady of Steel Award

Sam Kantimathi, equipment vendor, honors Rita Norr's memory with the donation of a Samboard Steel. Rita was an expert Scrabble® player for over 30 years and although she was especially courteous and caring, there was an intensity in her game that kept her near the top for years.
Lady of Steel Award will be awarded this year to the winner of Division 1, NSC 10, as Rita was the NSC winner in 1987. "Remembering Rita: A woman of warmth, a lady of steel". Thank you, Sam Kantimathi for this donation.

Rose and Rita Wordbook Prizes

Mike Baron, author of SCRABBLE Wordbooks, honors both Rose's and Rita's memories with the donation of two Rose and Rita Wordbooks. These will be given to the two highest scoring plays which contain any word with two R's in it. Thank you, Mike!

Breakfast/Lunch Special Deals

The Intercontinental has given us special breakfast and lunch prices in the hotel restaurant, the Monte Carlo, just down the escalator from our ballroom on the Mezzanine Level.

In addition, there will be Ala Carte Breakfast & Lunch Cash Sales on the Mezzanine Level outside the Crystal Ballroom. This is contingent upon sales revenues. All cash sales are contingent upon actual sales.

Evelyn Howard Holland High Losing Game Award

Harold Rennett has donated $125 for a prize to honor the memory of Washington, DC Club #171's late director, Evelyn Howard Holland. The club is now in its 30th year. This will be divided into 5 $25 prizes to be given to the player in each division who has the high losing game. Thank you, Harold!

Additional Donations

$100 by Kathy Johnson

Prizes

First place in Division 1 will be $10,000.

Cash prizes will be awarded by check; 30% withholding tax
applies unless proper documentation is provided prior to
the beginning of the championship.
Winners of physical prizes other than cash must be at the prize ceremony to pick up their prizes. Those prizes will not be shipped.

Format

The NSC will be paired using tsh along the lines of past events.
In each round, the top contenders are paired with each other, and everyone else is paired Swiss.
These two groups, contenders and noncontenders, are paired with minimal repeats. For example,
if there is no way to pair the contenders without at least one repeat, then they will be paired
with one repeat.

The maximum number of contenders is 12 in Rounds 1-28, 8 in Round 29, 4 in Round 30 and 2 in Round 31.
The contenders are further divided into a subgroup of leaders and non-leaders, if this can be done without
increasing the number of required repeats while maintaining at least four players among the leaders.
Leaders are paired by repeatedly having the top unpaired player play the lowest-ranked player that can
catch up to them. Non-leaders are paired Swiss.

Saturday to Wednesday: Game Days

Tidy-People

Tidy-people will help straighten up and dispose of trash at the end of their sessions.

Div 1: Lila Crotty

Div 2: Cynthia Seales

Div 3: Caesar Jaramillo

Div 4: Judy Cole

Div 5: Pat Oppenlander, Kathy Johnson

Laptops for Adjudication

We will need at least 8 laptops for adjudications. The laptops will need the latest version of ZYZZYVA. Please be sure the correct word list in operations and disable your screensaver in the playing area during games.

Winter

Michael Donegan

Wes Eddings

Chris Schneider

Verna Richards Berg

Heather Steffy

Michael Bassett

Joel Sherman

John Dalton

Host city: Addison, TX

The Town of Addison is located in the northern suburbs of Dallas, approximately 13 miles from the downtown area.
Addison is regional business, shopping, and dining hub; it has several shopping centers, over 150 restaurants and one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country.

Surrounding area including Dallas and Fort Worth

Links for the Metroplex

Tournament venue

Hotel InterContinental Dallas offers both the
meeting space and accommodations. The hotel is a
member of the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) chain.
When booking online, please use
this link to obtain our group rate
of US$129/night (plus taxes, for single or double
accommodation). The rate is available for three days
before and after the NSC and WPC, and includes
complimentary Internet in guest rooms and playing rooms,
and complimentary parking.

Tournament organizers negotiate fees for
the use of playing rooms based on meeting
guest night quotas. When you stay at the
host hotel, you help support the NSC by
helping us meet our quota. You may opt not
do so by paying a facility fee instead when
you register for our championship.

For transportation to and from the hotel, you can either take a taxi or make a reservation on the Super Shuttle. You can get a rate discount on the Super Shuttle if you get several people together for the trip.

Vendors

If you have a product to sell to SCRABBLE players, this is the place
to do it. The 500+ most avid fans of the game will be in one place
with money ready to spend at your table. To find out more about
becoming an NSC vendor, please contact Mary Rhoades.

The following vendors have signed and returned the
vendor agreement
with any monies owed, if applicable, listed in the order the vendor
agreements were received.

Gene Tyszka, vendor of digital timers, boards, tiles and tile racks

Katya Lezin, author of KNIGHT SWAM, a young adult novel about SCRABBLE